Okay, I get it. Everybody is in love with steemit, mostly because of the rewarding system, because let’s be honest, that is the #1 important thing that makes steemit unique, besides the community that we (still) have. I like it as well, and my account is going better than I expected before I started on steemit. One of my last articles got 28 upvotes, and at first, I got pretty excited about that, but later on it didn’t make me happy. Why?
Upvotes without views:
Because it only got three views. Yes, that’s right. Three people actually read the article, including me, my girlfriend and my father. So that leaves how much? Oh right, zero persons. Zero persons I didn’t ask to read my article, actually read my article. And still it got 28 upvotes, 25 excluding me, my father and my girlfriend.
I think that points out the first thing I dislike about steemit. Your curation rewards are the highest when you upvote an article very early, when later on, it reaches a lot of upvotes and high rewards. This causes so many people to just upvote quickly purely based on the title and the thumbnail, without even reading a single word of the article. I really dislike that about steemit.
Now, I am not complaining about the upvotes, off course I just started on steemit, and I appreciate every upvote I get, but it just doesn’t feel right when you get an upvote from a person who didn’t even clicked on, let alone read, the article. Did I even deserve the upvote then? And maybe more importantly, did the person upvoting me deserve the curation rewards? In my opinion, the answer is no.
Even worse, it may cause upvotes on fake articles. If I would have made that article with just the thumbnail, the title and the first sentence it would have had the same amount of upvotes, and that is the last thing we want on steemit. Maybe there should be a system where you have to click on the article first, before you can actually upvote it. It is just an idea, and I would like to hear what you think about it.
The power of whales:
The second thing I dislike about steemit are the whales. Yes, you might think I am writing my steemit death sentence, but I dislike the whales. They have way too much power. Off course, whales are also just people like you and me, and I am completely sure they only mean good when they upvote other accounts, but I think whales have too much power. Just to be clear, I have nothing against whales as in the person that is behind it, I just don’t like the way their account has so much power. They have the power to upvote small accounts, and by doing that, they can make these small accounts bigger and more popular, getting the ‘value’ that the undervalued accounts deserve.
I think this is both a bad thing and a good thing. The good thing is obvious, but the bad thing is that they can never read every small account and decide whether it’s good content or not. This still leaves some undervalued accounts undervalued, creating what I think a lot of jealousy. I experience it myself as well. I know I shouldn’t compare myself with others, and just enjoy every person that reads my articles, but it just happens. You cannot stop the fact that you compare yourself to others, it’s just in our human nature. I think it can even make steemit users discouraged to continue, and that is another thing you really don’t want on steemit. Beginners that lose interest after a few days, because they think they can never get the attention of a whale
The question is however, if this problem will be solved if there wouldn’t be any whales anymore. The answer is no, but I do think the problem will be less great. Maybe every account should have the same amount of voting power. This is also just an idea, and I would like to hear what you think about it.
These are two things I dislike about steemit, and I think the negative things should be pointed out as well, because at the end, those are the things you can improve.
This wasn’t a hate post on steemit. Again, I just think we, as a steemit community, should talk more about the negative parts of steemit, for the sake of improvement.
Please comment what you think about this, and let me know what more you think can or should be improved on this platform. And thanks if you upvoted this, and actually read it as well 😉.
-Awesomebiology